


Constancy

by spacehopper



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Episode Ignis Alternate Ending, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-15
Updated: 2017-12-15
Packaged: 2019-02-14 23:56:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13018917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacehopper/pseuds/spacehopper
Summary: Ignis may be willing to sacrifice everything for Noct. But Noct will do anything to get him back.





	Constancy

“Ignis?” Noct says, voice rough with sleep and pain. He’d been fighting, Leviathan, the Nifs, Luna—

“Ignis?” Noct says again, opening his eyes and struggling to sit up. Everything hurts. And nothing makes sense. He can see now he’s in their hotel room in Altissia, but how had he gotten there? 

“Noct!” 

He jerks his head to the right in time to see Prompto spring out of his chair and reach for Noct, trying to push him back into bed. 

“You need to rest, dude, that was some crazy shit.” Prompto’s hands press down, but Noct gently shoves him away and swings his legs over the edge of the bed.

“Where’s Ignis?” he says. Ignis will know what had happened. Ignis will have a plan. His bare feet touch the plush carpet, and he stands shakily, throwing an arm out as he staggers. Prompto catches him, one arm slung around his waist. Prompto, not Ignis.

Ignis would never leave his side willingly. Bile rises in his throat.

“Where’s Ignis?” he repeats. He meet Prompto’s wide, scared eyes. “Prompto.”

“Noct, he—”

“Ardyn took him.” Noct looks up to see Gladio coming through the doorway, arms crossed as he leans against a wall. Teeth gritted. He’s angry. Well, fuck him. 

“Why didn’t you do something?” Noct says, lurching towards Gladio as Prompto tries to hold him steady.

Gladio lets out a bitter bark of laughter. “You think I could stop him? He’d sacrifice everything for you.” 

“He didn’t need—” Need to protect me. But he had, hadn’t he? Noct had fallen, but it’d been Ignis who took the fall. 

“Always cleaning up your messes,” Gladio says. 

“Gladio,” Prompto says, holding out his free hand, as if that’d do anything to stop Gladio running his mouth.

“We’ll get him back,” Noct says. “I’ll get him back.” He meets Gladio’s steady glare. Gladio has never backed down before, but he softens after a minute, shaking his head and letting hims arms fall to his side.

“Good,” Gladio says. 

“I can bring you to him.”

Noct hadn’t even seen Ravus enter, but as Noct whirls around to look, his presence strikes like a blow, hair straggling around his face and bags under his eyes. Luna. And yet—

“Why should we trust you?” Noct says. 

“Perhaps you shouldn’t,” Ravus says. He braces himself against the door frame. “But fighting alongside your Ignis, I found him a worthy ally.”

Your Ignis. Noct tries to ignore the warmth it brings. There isn’t time for that now. 

“And that’s it? You expect me to believe just because you were impressed with Ignis, you’re willing to change sides now?” 

“Do you care so little for him that you’re willing to waste time arguing over past grievances?” Ravus won’t even look at Noct as he says it, disdain dripping from his every word. A different kind of warmth flares in the pit of Noct’s chest. 

“Don’t you dare say I don’t care about him,” Noct says, striding forward and fisting a hand in Ravus’s jacket. “I lo—”

The words die on his lips. He loves Ignis, of course he does, even if he never says it. Just like he loves Gladio, and Prompto. 

But they weren’t who he asked for when he first woke up. They aren’t his constant companions. Not like Ignis. Noct swallows hard.

“I do care,” he says softly, fingers loosening. He steps back.

“Then let us depart at once,” Ravus says, turning to go. Noct follows. “My airship is ready.”

He stops, back to Noct.

“It’s what Luna would have wanted,” he says, before continuing down the hall. An answer, of a sort. A peace offering. 

“You sure you’re up to it, Noct?” Prompto says, resting a hand on his shoulder.

He’s lost Luna. He isn’t losing Ignis, too. He closes his eyes, feeling for the familiar magic, and summons his sword. It feels good in his hands. It’ll feel better in Ardyn’s chest.

“Yes.”

*

The journey to Zegnautus Keep passes in a blur. The airship is dark, and the sky outside darker still. There is no moon tonight. Noct’s fingers curl into a fist. He knows he has a duty, a duty Luna had died for. A duty Ignis may—

No. He can’t think that. Ignis will be fine. Is fine.

Ignis may be willing to sacrifice everything for Noct. But Noct will do anything to get him back. 

“We’re here,” Gladio says, clapping him on the shoulder before jumping out of the airship. Noct shakes his head, trying to clear it. He must’ve drifted off at some point. He can’t afford to do that now.

Ignis needs him.

Dashing after Gladio, Noct summons his sword, then stops short. The building is in shambles around them, bodies and the still sparking shells of MTs crushed under huge metal girders and cracked cement. Noct takes a hesitant step forward, then turns back to Ravus, who seems unsurprised.

“What happened?” he demands. 

Ravus’s mouth thins into a line. “Ardyn.”

“How do we get to him?”

“He’ll be with the crystal,” Ravus says. He nods at a gap in wreckage.

“Then that’s where we’ll go,” Noct says.

He doesn’t look back to see if the others are following as he runs down into the depths of what had once been the center of Gralea. He throws his sword more than once, warping for speed, desperate to get there before it’s too late. Too late for what, he isn’t sure. He just needs to be there. Like Ignis has always been there for him. 

Noct stumbles over a fragment of concrete, tripping and hissing sharply as he catches himself, hands braced on shattered glass. As he struggles to his feet, he winces at the sight of his hands. It’ll be killer later, but right now he can barely feel it. 

“Noct!” Prompto calls, breathing hard as he slides to a halt next to him. “You okay?”

“Fine,” Noct says. A shockwave rumbles through the building, and dust and chunks of masonry fall from the ceiling. “Let’s go.”

He stays with the others after that. Recklessness is always what get him into messes, the kind Ignis needs to get him out of, but Ignis isn’t here now. It’s Noct’s turn. 

He hopes it’s enough.

*

He has to go. He knows it, knows it’s the only way to save Ignis, the only way to save everyone. Ignis has given him so much, but he can’t give any more. 

Noct can.

As he moves to stand, Ignis holds tight to his hand, meeting his eyes. There’s something there, something that’s always been there, that Noct has somehow missed.

“Iggy,” Noct says. He has to say it now, just in case. “I—”

“There will be time,” Ignis rasps out, barely a whisper. 

Noct meets his eyes. Nods.

Turns into the light.

*

“Your Majesty,” Ignis says. 

“Iggy,” Noct says, leaning forward in the throne and resting his elbows on his knees. “You know you don’t have to call me that. Not when we’re alone.”

“I know,” Ignis says. He’s walking to the throne, one measured step at a time, boots echoing in the cavernous room. It’s empty but for them, just for a moment, a moment Noct has dreamed of, even while the crystal held him. Ignis kneels in front of him, takes his hand, and brings it to his lips. When Noct reaches out a hand, it trembles as he runs a finger down the faint line of a scar.

In the end, they don’t need words.


End file.
